Beverly Turk

BEVERLY ANN TURK peacefully left this world on October 29, 2025, surrounded by family. She was 88 years old.

Beverly was born in Trenton, Missouri, on June 6, 1937, to Daniel Winfield Isaacs, a WWI Veteran, and Erda Frances (Green) Isaacs. She was the oldest of three children. Her brothers Larry and David preceded her in death.

While she was still a baby, the family relocated to Highland Park, on the north side of Des Moines, when her father was promoted to Superintendent of Bridges and Building for the Rock Island Railroad’s Iowa operations.

Although the family endured the national crisis of WWII, with its rationing of countless consumer items, Beverly still enjoyed a charmed childhood. She grew up in a two-story house at 3810 10th Street, with a backyard lined with beautiful peonies and other flowers. Bev enjoyed cutting out paper dolls, roller skating with her girlfriends, playing jacks, jumping rope, hopscotch on the sidewalk, and playing at nearby McHenry Park. In the hot summer months, she would hide with the neighbor kids while the ice man delivered blocks of ice, then sneak chips of ice that he had conveniently left in the unattended cart. Her father’s position with the railroad enabled her to ride the train for free -- taking many trips to her grandparents’ homes in Missouri, or on family fishing trips as far north as Bemidji, Minnesota.

As a girl, “Bev” participated in Camp Fire Girls and spent summers camping at Camp Hantesa, near The Ledges. Years later, she would volunteer as a leader in Bluebirds and in Camp Fire Girls, helping her daughters enjoy the same experiences. Bev had been active in Rainbow in high school, and her girls followed suit when they became that age. Bev was also a dedicated 50-year member of Eastern Star.

One of Bev’s first jobs was delivering telegraph messages among the Rock Island Railroad offices in downtown Des Moines, across from the depot and just down the street from the New Utica Hat Company. It was an exciting experience for a high school girl, all dressed up in a bustling business atmosphere.

Shortly after graduating from North High School, Bev met her future husband, Gene; he was working behind the counter as a butcher at Lynn’s Super Value, just a few blocks from her home. She knew from the start that she had found her lifelong mate. She often spoke of one of their first dates: Elvis Presley in concert at Vets Auditorium in Des Moines. Bev and Gene married a year later at The Little Brown Church in the Vale, in Naushua, Iowa, built in 1862. Bev’s maid of honor was her childhood friend, Shelby Gall. (Years later, Bev and Shelby would conspire to introduce their two youngest children to each other, resulting in a permanent bond between the families when Bart and Kathy married.)

Bev and Gene settled in Estherville, Iowa, near where Gene had just started working as brakeman for Rock Island Railroad. Their first-born, Gene Jr., arrived in 1958. Daughter Mary Ann followed 364 days later. By that time, the Turks were living in a tiny house in Carney, a small unincorporated mining town south of Ankeny. Gene found a job at the nearby John Deere factory, and Bev maintained the household as a traditional stay-at-home mom.

In 1961, anticipating the birth of their third child, Patricia, Bev and Gene purchased a bigger, albeit much older, home in Carney, on a three-acre tract of land where coal miners’ shanties had stood fifty years previously. In fact, the house itself had been built on the very foundation of the mining company’s former general store. Gene and Bev worked tirelessly to remodel the house and converted the attic into two more bedrooms for their growing family. Two years later came the birth of their fourth and final child, Bart.

Bev was a patient and loving mother. She taught her children to cook and sew and garden, and many other things that built character. The kids helped feed the livestock: chickens, duck, geese, and tame rabbits that provided the family with eggs and meat. They had a lot of fun times, too. Bev often took the children to Riverview Amusement Park in Des Moines, especially on Wednesdays, when tickets were only three cents apiece! Bev had been an accomplished swimmer in high school, as well as a water skier, so naturally she taught the children to swim. She also had played the piano in high school, and she encouraged her children to be musical. The family took annual trips to Florida to visit Gene’s parents, and they spent many summer weekends with their cousins in Waterville, Minnesota, camping and fishing.

The children attended Ankeny schools. After the kids started high school, Bev began a career as a teacher’s aide in the developmental kindergarten program at Southeast Elementary in Ankeny. She enjoyed the children immensely, and the children in turn adored their “Mrs. Turkey.” Bev stayed at Southeast for nearly twenty years, working almost entirely with two teachers, Sherry Stevens and LuAnn Smith.

In retirement, Bev and Gene traveled all over the United States, including Alaska, and they toured Europe with Bev’s childhood friend, Shelby (Gall) Toms and her husband, Jerry. Gene and Bev continued to spend many weeks each summer at their cabin on Lake Tetonka in Waterville, Minnesota, and several months at their winter home near Titusville, Florida. Mostly, however, they loved just being with each other at their Carney house, gardening and entertaining their grandchildren. One of Bev’s favorite pastimes was to sit in the backyard swing and sing the sweet songs of her childhood.

Bev was one of the last surviving mothers of the idyllic Carney community of the 1960’s and 1970’s. Bev’s best friend and confident was her fellow Carney mother, JoAnn Wilkinson. The Carney families were a tight-knit group; they even shared “party” telephone lines. Their children played together all day in the summer, girls and boys playing baseball, football, and basketball, exploring the old mining ruins, and catching crawdads in the nearby Carney Marsh. The kids had group campouts and sleep overs, and families shared the bounty of their vegetable gardens. There was even an annual weekend “hog roast’ potluck every year at “Tommy Harkin’s” woods, complete with a jukebox and makeshift dance floor.

Bev is survived by her husband of 68 years, Gene; four children, Gene (Eva) Turk, Jr., Mary Ann Bane Burrows, Trish (Dave) Egemo, and Bart (Kathy) Turk; thirteen grandchildren; eight great-grandchildren; and her four nieces, Becky (Jesse) Byers, Beth Ann Noon, Teresa Isaacs, and Mary Lynn (John) Triay.

Interment will be in Highland Memorial Gardens, next to her mother and father. Visitation will be held Saturday, November 8th, from 10:00 to 11:00 a.m., at Hamilton’s Funeral Home, 605 Lyon Street, in Des Moines. Friends are welcome to come and share their memories.

Memorials may be made to the Iowa Chapter of Alzheimer’s Association. Condolences can be left on the Hamilton Funeral Home website.

The family would like to thank Bridges at Ankeny Care Center and Suncrest Hospice Services for their kind treatment of Beverly and her family.

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